On Saturday, July 12th, the People’s Organization for Progress will host its annual observance of the anniversary of the epic Newark Rebellion.
It will take place at the Newark Rebellion Monument, located at Springfield Av., between 15th Avenue and Irvine Turner Blvd, Newark at 1pm.
This year’s gathering marks the 47th anniversary of those cataclysmic, time-marking days. The Newark Rebellion began July 12th and ending after troop withdrawal from the city on July 17th.
The day is always a moving including eyewitness testimony and surviving family members of those who were claimed by the violence.
The Rebellion exploded in response to a black cabdriver, John Smith, having been severely beaten by Newark police officers. When it was thought that Smith had been killed angry protestors began throwing debris at the 5th Precinct where Smith was last seen. The police response was enormously heavyhanded in historical hindsight. Some urban scholars have even described the police response to the rebellion as a “police riot,” as local police and state and federal troopers moved in conducting mass arrests, numerous beatings to unarmed civilians, wanton destruction of black-owned properties, and most dangerously, indiscriminate shootings, especially at public housing roofs and windows. In the aftermath, more than two civilians had been killed.
The Rebellion, for the organizers of the event, is far more important for what it set off. It was the catalyst for 75 urban uprisings within days of what took place here, most of them taking place in New Jersey. It unleashed an unprecedented organizing wave for Black electorial power all over the country, led first the election of Ken Gibson as Mayor here in 1970.
“Forty-seven years later, we are still defined by what took place on those fateful days,” said Lawrence Hamm, the organization’s chairman.
This anniversary is the first to take place since the death of Amiri Baraka. His savage beating by the police made the Rebellion an international story. It is also the first to take place with his son, Ras Baraka, as Mayor.
RANDY WEAVER KILLED BY EAST ORANGE POLICE REMEMBERED
On Wednesday, July 16th, the People’s Organization for Progress will host a memorial vigil to mark the anniversary of the police killing of Randy Weaver.
The vigil will take place at East Orange City Hall Plaza, 44 MLK Plaza, East Orange at 5pm.
This year’s vigil marks the 15th anniversary of Weaver’s death.
On July 16th, 1999, Randy Weaver was shot by East Orange police officers while in the passenger side of a car they were pursuing believing that the vehicle was stolen.
The officers then refused to secure immediate medical attention for Weaver. It is this deliberate denial of medical treatment that would ultimately cost Weaver, only 21 years old then, his life.
His case sparked a steady wave of protests in what was a dark year for police brutality.
Weaver’s mother, Mary, has hosted a vigil every year to mark her son’s death and has since become a leading officer for the organization.
Weaver is now the organization’s vice president of internal affairs.
Randy was her only child.
THE PEOPLES ORGANIZATION FOR PROGRESS
PO BOX 22505
NEWARK, NJ 07101
973 801 0001
CONTACT: LAWRENCE HAMM
https://theblacklist.net/
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